Today's high technology corporations typically provide some aspect of product support to ensure that consumers and partners receive the maximum value for their technology investments. For instance, a variety of consumer and business support offerings, and strategic IT consulting services may be provided to help meet the requirements of customers and partners. Support offerings may include phone, on-site, Web-based support, and so on. Unfortunately, product support services can become prohibitively expensive, not only in terms of financial costs, but also the amount of time that is required to find a solution. For instance, on-site consulting services are typically expensive, so expensive that most non-corporate consumers cannot afford to hire an individual product consultant or troubleshooter.
Additionally, when services are automated, for instance via online searches of a knowledge base comprising product “how-to” (help) and troubleshooting articles, the amount of time that it may take the consumer to identify an on-point set of articles may become prohibitive. One reason for this is because knowledge base product troubleshooting articles are typically generated by professional writers, vendors, and the like, not the everyday users of the products for which support is sought. In such a scenario, if the user does not form a search query using the terms adopted by knowledge base (KB) content producer(s), the user may find it very difficult and time consuming to locate any on-point knowledge base troubleshooting information.